The Brook Woman is quiet long enough that the stream fills all the silence. Then she lowers the box — not withdrawing it, setting it between them like evidence on the flat rock. "My brother," she says. Simple as a stone dropped in water. "He carried the Ember out of Aldermere the night the old tower burned, and he swore on the sun clasp to keep it safe until the village sent its own hands to reclaim it. The clasp was the seal of that oath — it could not be passed on. Only returned." She looks at the faded sigil on Wren's breastplate with something that is not quite grief. "He has not been my brother for some years now." She lifts the box. The latch gleams, sun-shaped and patient. "The Ember is inside. But the oath was his to keep — and you are wearing his armour."